What is chai mocha?

Chai mocha is a spiced tea with milk and chocolate syrup. Just like a regular tea mocha, chai mocha tastes super indulgent too. The usual mocha drinks are made with steamed milk, but this recipe is following the classic chai making procedure – simmering all ingredients in water and milk. Why should you bother with the longer process and simmer the ingredients rather than simply brewing a cup of spiced tea and adding steamed milk? The answer is quite simple. Simmering will release much more flavour than brewing. If you want to learn more, check this article here.

Ingredients

Black tea leaves

Proper black tea leaves are a base of any classic chai, spiced or not. The most common tea used for making chai is Assam tea, however, some other types may work well too. Your tea doesn’t need to be of the highest quality. In fact, cheaper types such as CTC are even better. However, it’s absolutely essential it is fresh and not stale, and has lots of flavour.

Spices

Depending on your preferences, you can use more or less spices. For a lightly spiced tea, use the amount of spices specified in the recipe. If you want a more aromatic drink, you can double the amount of spices, but do it only with one of them – not all.

Milk

Use whole milk rather than skimmed or semi-skimmed milk. A good chai should have a good texture and it shouldn’t be watery. You can also replace most of the water with milk.

Chocolate syrup and sweeteners

You can use either a homemade chocolate syrup or a pre-made chocolate syrup. Either will be fine. Chocolate syrups are usually quite sweet, so don’t add too much sugar into tea. ½ teaspoon will be enough to balance out any bitterness from black tea leaves.

Find the recipe for chocolate syrup here.

Whipping cream

Whipping cream will add that final delicious touch to chai mocha. Mocha drinks are usually served with whipped cream although this is optional. In this recipe, whipping cream is only lightly whipped, so it has a consistency of a thicker liquid cream, stays on the top and is easily mixed into a drink. Add ½ teaspoon of black sugar if the cream is unsweetened.

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Homemade Chai Mocha

Delicious spiced chai with chocolate syrup

Course Drinks

Keyword Black Tea, Chai, Chocolate

Prep Time 4 minutes minutes

Cook Time 6 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• saucepan
• Pestle and mortar
• Serving glass
• strainer

Ingredients

• 1 ½ teaspoon of Assam black tea
• ½ teaspoon of light brown sugar
• 160 ml of whole milk
• 160 ml of water
• 1 cardamom
• 2 cloves
• 1 cm Ceylon cinnamon stick
• 3-4 teaspoons of chocolate syrup
• 50 ml whipping cream
• ½ teaspoon of light brown sugar for shipping cream if unsweetened

Instructions

• Add spices into a pestle and mortar and crush them.
• Add spices into a small saucepan, turn the heat to high and dry roast them until fragrant.
• Add water and bring it to a boil.
• Reduce to medium heat and add tea leaves. Simmer for 2 minutes.
• Add milk and sugar and bring it to a boil again, then reduce and simmer for 2-3 minutes.
• Pour the tea into a serving glass.
• Add chocolate syrup.
• Whip the whipping cream until creamy but not stiff (soft peaks).
• Top up chai mocha with whipped cream.  

More Chai Recipes

The post Chai Mocha – Indulgent Spiced Tea with Chocolate Syrup appeared first on All That Tea.

What is a tea tonic?

Tea tonic is a drink made with icy cold tonic and brewed tea. The idea originated from coffee tonic; a refreshing drink made with a shot of espresso poured over cold tonic. To get a two layered look, make sure the tonic is fresh and icy cold and always pour tea straight onto the ice.

Tea tonic usually contains a caffeinated tea, so make sure to use a decaf tea for a caffeine-free drink.

What is the best tea for making tea tonic boba?

You can use any tea you want to make this drink. Earl grey is a wonderful classic choice that pairs extremely well with tonic and grape flavoured boba pearls. You can also use other types of black tea, both flavoured and pure. Stronger pure of flavoured green teas, dark oolongs, ripe pu’erh and flavoured shou mei white teas are all great choices. Choose teas you usually enjoy drinking.

Tonic is already sweet enough, and this drink doesn’t need any additional sweeteners. However, always brew the tea properly to avoid extreme bitterness or murkiness.

Some great teas to try:

• Assam black tea
• Mango flavoured black tea
• Coconut flavoured black tea
• Peach flavoured green tea
• Red robe oolong tea

Why adding popping boba?

Popping boba is a boba tea ingredient filled with fruit juices. When you bite into it, popping boba will burst, adding another delicious fruity note to tea tonic. These boba pearls are used for making fruit bobas rather than milk boba teas. They come in a whole range of flavours, such as peach, pineapple, lychee, grapes, mango etc. Popping boba doesn’t need to be cooked or washed and you can simply add them to any juice or drink.

Ingredients for making Tea Tonic Boba

Tonic: choose any tonic you want, as long as it’s freshly opened. Avoid using flat tonics. Alternatively, you can use a flavoured carbonated water too.  

Tea: make a stronger brew using 1 heaped teaspoon of tea leaves, and steep for 3-5 minutes, depending on the tea type. If you want to extract more flavour, add more tea leaves instead of steeping them longer.

Popping boba: They are usually available in smaller containers, enough for making three drinks. If you are using regular unflavoured black or green tea, choose your favourite flavour. If you are using flavoured teas, try to match the popping boba flavour with the flavour of tea. Grape flavoured pearls pair extremelly well with earl grey tea. Add popping boba before adding ice.

Ice: add lots of ice into tonic before adding tea. Set aside for a couple of minutes until your tonic is icy cold. While waiting, brew the tea to save time.

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Earl Grey Tea Tonic Boba

Super tasty tea tonic boba with grape popping pearls

Course Drinks

Keyword Black Tea, Earl Grey, Popping Boba

Prep Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• Kettle
• Serving glass

Ingredients

• 120 ml tonic or 1/3 glass
• 120 ml brewed tea or 1/3 glass
• 3 tablespoons of grape popping boba
• 1 heaped teaspoon Earl Grey tea or tea of your choice
• 150 ml water for making tea
• ice

Instructions

• Bring fresh water to a boil.
• Pour 120 ml of cold tonic into a serving glass.
• Add popping boba and lots of ice. Set aside.
• Steep 1 heaped teaspoon of tea leaves in freshly boiled water for 3-5 minutes.
• If needed, add more ice into a serving glass with tonic and popping boba. Slowly pour freshly boiled tea directly onto ice.
• Serve immediately. Add boba straw or a long-handled teaspoon.

The post Earl Grey Tea Tonic Boba appeared first on All That Tea.

Why Strawberries and Cream Matcha?

Strawberries and cream are a classic. This easy to dessert is an ultimate summer treat and one of the easiest desserts you can make. The liquid version is as delightful, and as easy to make at home. Because of its unique flavour and versatility, matcha is often used for making liquid treats. Matcha contains caffeine and antioxidants, and it’s a great alternative to milky caffeinated drinks.

How to choose the best matcha?

To make the best tasting strawberries and cream matcha, use only good quality tea powders. Any grade, including cooking or ceremonial, will be a good choice, but it has to be vibrant and fresh with an intense green colour. Avoid grey powders with a stale or dull scent. You don’t need to use the most expensive matcha for making matcha drinks, but they need to be green and fresh.  

What is a milk tea?

Milk tea is any tea made with milk, regardless if contains only a tablespoon of milk or milk only. Milk tea is different than tea with milk, which is usually a cup of hot tea served with a splash of milk. However, today, milk tea usually means boba tea, a Taiwanese drink made with tapioca pearls. This milk tea contains both milk and whipping cream, without boba pearls. However, if you want to have a proper boba, you can use a strawberry jelly instead of a syrup as a bottom layer.

Ingredients for making Strawberries and Cream Matcha

Matcha tea – You’ll need only ½ teaspoon of matcha tea powder, which is the same amount you’d use for making a bowl of traditional matcha. Pre-sifting matcha is mandatory to prevent lumps and get a beautiful green colour.

Milk – You’ll need milk for the matcha layer. Full fat milk is great for milky drinks as it will give more sweetness and a better texture. However, you can use semi-skimmed milk too. Do not add sugar to this layer.

Strawberries – Although fresh fruits will definitely taste better, frozen ones will be great for making a strawberry syrup. Gently wash them over running cold tap water to remove any excess ice and use instead of the fresh ones. The more strawberries you use, the better. However, 50 grams per 150 ml of water will be enough to get a sweet and flavourful syrup.  

Whipping cream – Many whipping creams will usually already contain sugar. Read the label before using it. Alternatively, you can single cream (or light cream). Whipping cream will have at least 20% of fat, depending on the brand and the country. On average, it will have around 30%. Single cream contains 19% and double cream almost 50. Single cream will be a great alternative as you will get a more enjoyable texture.

More Strawberry Tea Inspiration

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Strawberries and Cream Matcha Milk Tea

Super delicious milk tea with 3 layers

Course Dessert, Drinks

Keyword Matcha, Milk Tea, Strawberries

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 20 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• Kettle
• saucepan
• strainer
• chasen or electric hand whisk
• Serving glass

Ingredients

Strawberry layer

• 50 grams of fresh strawberries
• 150 ml of water
• 4 teaspoons of sugar

Matcha layer

• 70 ml of water
• 70 ml of milk
• ½ teaspoon of matcha

Cream layer

• 50 ml of whipping cream

Instructions

• Start by making the strawberry layer. Wash and slice strawberries.
• Add strawberries and 150 ml of water into a small saucepan and simmer on low heat for 15-20 minutes.
• Strain the syrup, add sugar and stir while simmering for a few more minutes.
• Bring water to a boil and let it cool to 85 degrees Celsius. (185 Fahrenheit)
• Sift matcha powder into a small bowl. Add water and whisk it using a chasen or electric hand whisk. Top up with cold milk.
• Pour strawberry syrup into a clean serving glass. Add about 1-2 cm, depending on how sweet you want your drink to be and the size/shape of your glass.
• Add ice. Large cubes will be better than small ones.
• Slowly pour cream over ice.
• Slowly pour matcha tea over ice.
• Serve with a straw.  

The post Strawberries and Cream Matcha appeared first on All That Tea.

Why Pink Grapefruit?

Pink grapefruit is not an ingredient you’ll often find in tea blends, but it is a perfect citrus for making refreshing drinks. With the zesty and sweet flavour and light bitterness, it gives a more unique flavour than other citruses. Besides, there’s a pretty orange-pink colour too. And lastly, being a citrus, pink grapefruit will change the colour of blue pea tea into purple.  

Why Butterfly Pea Flower?

Butterfly pea flower tea is a caffeine-free tea with a beautiful blue colour and a very neutral taste. You can make it with citruses and other fruits, or milk and chocolaty ingredients. It’s a unique herbal tea that’s worth having in your tea cupboard.

Ingredients for making a Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea

Pink Grapefruit: You’ll need ½ – 1 pink grapefruit for making a pink grapefruit juice, depending on how sweet you want your tea to be. We recommend using a whole grapefruit and diving the juice into 2 servings.

Butterfly Pea Flowers: Butterfly pea flowers are available as whole dried flowers and as a powder. Use whole flowers for this recipe. You’ll need 10-15 whole flowers per serving. With this tea, it’s quite important to choose quality over the price as some lower-quality flowers may not be as blue.

Sugar: Sugar is a must for this recipe. You’ll need 2-3 spoons of sugar for making a grapefruit juice. Use regular granulated white sugar.  

Steps for making a Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea

Make blue tea: Butterfly pea flower tea is super easy o brew. You’ll need a cup, freshly boiled water and dried butterfly pea flowers. You don’t need a strainer because flowers are big enough to remove them using a teaspoon or a fork. Steep it for 5 minutes at 95-100 degrees Celsius. Don’t worry if you over-steep it, it won’t become bitter.

Make grapefruit juice: While the tea is steeping, start preparing a sweetened grapefruit juice. Squeeze the juice first using a citrus squeezer, then use a kitchen strainer or a cheesecloth to remove all seeds and pulp. Then add it into a small saucepan and add sugar. Simmer on low heat while stirring, until sugar fully dissolves. Once ready (after about 4-5 minutes), pour it into a serving glass and add ice. Adding sugar in this step is a must if you want to achieve a layered look.

Add butterfly pea flower tea: Slowly (important!) pour the tea into the serving glass. Pour it directly on the ice. The ice will melt, but you can easily add more ice later. Don’t stir the tea. Once you serve it, you can stir it just enough to change the colour and adjust the sweetness, and even top up with more butterfly pea flower without losing the whole pink grapefruit layer.  

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Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea

Super tasty 2 layered caffeine free iced tea

Course Drinks

Keyword Butterfly Pea Flower, Iced Tea, Pink Grapefruit

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

Cook Time 5 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• saucepan
• cup
• Serving glass

Ingredients

• 200 ml of freshly squeezed grapefruit juice . 1 big grapefruit
• 2-3 tablespoons of sugar 3 is better, but the juice will be sweet. If youlike less sweet teas, divide it into two servings
• 10-15 dried butterfly pea flowers
• 200 ml freshly boiled water to make blue tea
• Ice

Instructions

• Bring fresh water to a boil.
• Add butterfly pea flowers to a cup and add hot water. Steep for 5 minutes. Remove butterfly pea flowers from the cup.
• Squeeze grapefruit juice using a citrus squeezer and use a cheesecloth or a kitchen strainer to remove all seeds and pulp.
• Add grapefruit juice to a saucepan and add sugar. Simmer on lot heat until sugar dissolves for about 5 minutes. Turn off the heat and let it cool for a couple of minutes.
• Pour grapefruit juice into a serving glass.
• Add ice.
• Slowly pour blue tea into the serving glass, straight onto ice, avoiding direct contact with grapefruit juice.
• Add more ice if needed.
• Serve with a straw.

The post Pink Grapefruit & Butterfly Pea Flower Iced Tea appeared first on All That Tea.

What is Blue Milk Tea?

Blue milk tea is a milk tea made from butterfly pea or clitoria ternatea flowers. It originates in Asia and has a deep, intense blue colour. But these flowers are more than just pretty – they have such a unique flavour profile that you can match them with dozens of different ingredients. They are also known for their colour changing ability and go really well with milk. What more could a tea lover ask from an herbal tea? Butterfly pea flower covers pretty much all the must haves to become every tea lover’s favourite tisane.

Is Blue Milk Tea Healthy?

Besides flavour and colour, clitoria ternatea flowers may provide many health benefits. Studies suggest butterfly pea flower may improve cognitive performance and provide antioxidant, antidiabetic, antimicrobial and inti-inflammatory activity (1). Butterfly pea flower tea is caffeine free, but if you add caffeinated ingredients such as matcha, you will add caffeine too. If you avoid adding too much sugar or replace sugar with a calorie-free alternative, it will contain fewer calories.

What Makes Matcha Pudding is a Perfect Topping?

Butterfly pea flower and matcha are not a common pair, although there are several blends that combine them.

What makes these two a perfect pair are:

• potential benefits,
• flavour and
• colour.

Butterfly pea flower is often consumed for its potential calming properties and matcha contains antioxidants and L-theanine, an amino acid that may provide a calming effect as well. With its neutral and light floral flavour, blue tea goes really well with sweet and grassy matcha. If you haven’t tried it yet, you will be surprised how delicious they are together.

Ingredients for Making Blue Milk Tea

Butterfly pea flowers: These beautiful flowers are available from many tea shops and Amazon. When choosing the perfect butterfly pea flower tea, look for flowers that are blue rather than purple. Lower quality tea will often have a less intense blue colour.

Milk: The best type of milk for this milk tea is either a coffee creamer or half-and-half. You will need only one tablespoon to get a beautiful milky tea. Alternatively, use a vegan coffee creamer.

Sugar: While flavourful, this milk tea is still gentle. Regular white sugar has a neutral taste that won’t influence other flavours in this tea.

Almond extract: A few drops of almond extract will really elevate this drink. You can replace it with regular vanilla or some other flavours, such as coconut.

Steps for Making Blue Milk Tea

Making the tea: Brew your tea first. Use about 15 flowers per 250 ml of boiling water and steep for 5 minutes. You can steep it longer because it won’t become bitter. If you are using high quality unbroken flowers, you won’t even need a strainer or an infuser – you can simply remove flowers using a spoon or a fork.

Adding sugar and extract: Once the tea is ready, remove the flowers and add sugar and almond extract. Stir until dissolved. Taste it to see if you want to make it sweeter.

Assembling the drink: Pour the tea into a serving glass and add ice. Wait for a couple of minutes before adding matcha pudding. Pudding will melt in hot drink, so let it cool first. Once you added pudding, add a tablespoon of coffee creamer and stir.   

Ingredients for Making Matcha Pudding

Matcha powder: Always use fresh and vibrant matcha for making matcha pudding. Your powder shouldn’t be bitter, and it should have a vibrant green colour. Both culinary and ceremonial grades are good options. We used Korean matcha powder, which has a beautiful intense colour and a deep flavour.

Sugar: Regular white sugar is the best option for making matcha pudding if you want to preserve the flavour of matcha tea.

Milk: Regular whole milk is the best for making puddings. It will give a creamier texture and much better flavour than semi-skimmed or skimmed milk.

Corn-starch: Corn-starch is the key ingredient that will thicken hot milk into a pudding. For this recipe, use a bit more than you’d normally used to make pudding easy to cut and preserve shape in your drink.

Steps for Making Matcha Pudding

Prepare matcha tea base: While this step is not essential and you can replace it by simply sifting matcha powder in corn-starch and making sure it’s fully dissolved; it may give a slightly richer colour and it will make sure there are no lumps. Once the milk is hot, simply take a few tablespoons and mix it with matcha powder in a clean small bowl.

Dissolve corn-starch in milk: Never add corn-starch directly into hot milk. This step is crucial in making a homemade pudding. Always dissolve it in a few tablespoons of cold milk first.

Heating the milk and adding matcha and corn-starch: Heat the milk but don’t let it boil. Stir in dissolved matcha powder and mix well. Make sure it’s completely clump free and blended. Then add dissolved corn-starch while continuously stirring.

Chill it: Pour the pudding into a small square container and let it set in the fridge for an hour or two.

Variations

Butterfly pea flower tea is very gentle, so it goes well with many other ingredients.

Coconut blue milk tea: Instead of a regular creamer, you can use canned coconut milk and replace almond extract with vanilla or coconut extract.

Brown sugar boba pearls: If you don’t have time to make matcha pudding, you can use pre-made brown sugar boba pearls instead. They will taste just as delicious.

White chocolate pudding: Replace matcha pudding with white chocolate pudding, and almond extract with ½ teaspoon of rum or rum flavouring.

Super creamy tea: Add 2-3 extra tablespoons of creamer if you want an extra milky tea.

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Blue Milk Tea with Matcha Pudding

A must try beautiful milk tea with two types of tea

Course Drinks

Keyword Blue Tea, Boba Tea, Butterfly Pea Flower, Iced Tea, Matcha, Milk Tea

Prep Time 10 minutes minutes

For matcha pudding 1 hour hour 15 minutes minutes

Total Time 1 hour hour 25 minutes minutes

Servings 1

Equipment

• Serving glass
• Cup for brewing
• Matcha bowl or regular small bowl
• saucepan
• Matcha sifter or kitchen sifter
• electric hand frother
• Small bowl
• Square container

Ingredients

For Matcha Pudding

• 1 heaped teaspoon of matcha powder
• 300 ml of cold milk
• 3 tablespoons of cold milk
• 27 grams of fine corn-starch about 3 tablespoons
• 1-2 tablespoons of white sugar

For Blue Iced Tea

• 250 ml of water
• 15 butterfly pea flowers
• 1-2 teaspoons of sugar
• 10 ml of coffee creamer (2 teaspoons)
• Ice
• 100 grams of matcha pudding
• ¼-1/3 teaspoon of almond extract

Instructions

For Matcha Pudding

• Sift matcha powder into a clean and dry bowl.
• Add corn-starch into another clean bowl. Add 3 tablespoons of cold milk and mixwell.
• Add the rest of the milk and 1-2 tablespoons of sugar into a saucepan. Turn on the heat to medium-low.
• When the milk is hot but not boiling, take 3 tablespoons of milk and add to matcha and froth it with a hand frother. Keep simmering the milk on medium-low. 
• Pour matcha into hot milk and stir. There should be no clumps or visible tea powder particles.
• Add dissolved corn-starch and stir. It will start thickening immediately. When it reaches a desired texture, remove from the heat, and immediately pour into a clean square container. Let it set in the fridge.
• Once set, cut it into small cubes.

For Assembling the Blue Milk Tea

• Bring fresh water to a boil.
• Steep 15 flower in 250 ml of water for 5 minutes.
• Remove the flowers and add sugar and almond extract. Stir until dissolved.
• Fill a serving glass with ice and add tea. Wait for a couple of minutes until it cools.
• Add matcha pudding and a tablespoon of coffee creamer.
• Stir and serve.

Sources

(1) https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6546959/

The post Blue Milk Tea with Matcha Pudding: The Perfect Spring Pair appeared first on All That Tea.